Posts in Chardonnay
Bouchaine's Cosmopolitan Wines

Bouchaine's wines have a cosmopolitan edge, showcasing grace and pedigree with vigor. These are classy, approachable wines with broad appeal. Sitting on 104 contiguous acres on the southern cusp of cool climate Carneros overlooking San Francisco, Bouchaine Vineyards celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. Founders Tatiana and Gerret Copeland were pioneers in Carneros, which didn't become an AVA until 1985.

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Rodney Strong Vineyards Delivers Particularly Impressive, Value-Driven Chardonnay & Pinot Noir

Yet again, Rodney Strong has released some solid wines, especially at the value end of the spectrum. The Chalk Hill Chardonnay is a perennial star, and the 2017 Russian River Pinot Noir is especially tasty!

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An Introduction to The Boneline Wines

The slighly jarring - if catchy - name of this label has fascinating origins. The name points out the K-T Boundary Line that apparently tells the geological tale of an asteroid impact on earth, leading to the extinction of dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Fittingly, The Boneline's catch phrase is "wines grown on the shoulders of giants".

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Slovenian Sampler

It is always a pleasure to taste wines that are hard to come by in this country, especially when it's hard to get out of this country now. I tasted this line-up from Vitis Global last fall, and there was much to like in this diverse array of styles provided by a wide array of grape varieties and producers.

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Untouched by Light: a Marketing Sensation

Contrary to the claims of wine producer Radgonske Gorice and the producer's consultant hailing from Champagne, this Slovenian, traditional method sparkling wine tastes very much the same, whether it is the original wine tasted in the dark or the same wine tasted after light exposure. Yes, there are vague differences due to the temperatures and amounts of time in glass, but these are very minor indeed.

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A Disappointing Laurent Perrier NV Champagne Cuvée Brut

Dark gold in color, neither the appearance nor the aromas of this fizz are very fresh. It's one thing to have reserve wines in a non-vintage cuvée and another to have aggressive bottle evolution. Alas, this is neither a very exciting nor a very refreshing cuvée.

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Spanish Holiday Array

Spanish wines offer such excellent value and style diversity. They’re great to hit up for the holidays, even if your celebration may need fewer bottles than usual in this crazy year. As I always do, I marvel at the complexity of Sherry, one of the most under-appreciated wines around these days. Both this Sherry and this Chardonnay merit a “*” as personal faves!

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Domaine Bousquet NV Pinot Noir/Chardonnay Sparkling Brut Tupungato, Uco Valle

Domaine Bousquet NV Pinot Noir/Chardonnay Sparkling Brut: Perched in the Andes Mountains at 1,200 meters / 3,937 feet, the vineyards for these grapes are certified organic and harvested by hand. Produced using the Charmat method, where the second alcoholic fermentation occurs in tank rather than in bottle, this is a value-driven over-performer ready for everyday enjoyment or special occasions. Bonus: the wine is vegan friendly.

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A Welcoming or Perplexing Forecast: Sunny with a Chance of Flowers 

US consumers have arrived later than many others to the threshold of lower alcohol wines - not surprising for a country whose wine industry largely is known for cranking out high-alcohol, blockbuster bottlings. It's no surprise that US wine production has been slow to pursue the idea. That stands in grand contrast to the Moscato craze seven to eight years ago. (Ironically, many of those Moscatos were lower in alcohol.) The Moscato craze was easier to develop as sweet, low alcohol Moscato has been made - and made well - for a very long time. However, developing a dry, flavorful, low-alcohol wine is much trickier. I admit that I wondered if these wines would be more like "sunny with a chance of flavor".

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B Vintners from Walker Bay

B Vintners 2015 Chardonnay Fire Heath Walker Bay: Unusually aromatic with an almost a Muscat-like nose, I almost wish it hadn't known its grape variety when I first tasted it. This is a somewhat perplexing, but not at all displeasing, Chardonnay. Rather, it’s incredibly compelling.

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Domaine Alice Hartmann - Sitting on the Steep Slopes of the Moselle River

Hailing from eastern Luxembourg's limestone soils, this blended sparkler made of Chardonnay, Riesling and Pinot Noir was fermented in an equal split of 228-L oak barrels and stainless steel tanks. The still wine underwent malolactic fermentation before its second primary fermentation in bottle. Interestingly, it was dosed with the house's ice wine. The residual sugar sits at 11.5 g/L.

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Chehalem Winery's Latest Releases

Two years into the new ownership of Chehalem Winery, it is interesting to see how the winery is faring. The wines remain clean and pristine, and the prices of the most accessible wines remain exactly or about the same. Perhaps there are distinctions more visible further up the quality chain? At any rate, winemaker Katie Santora - with Chehalem since 2012, keeps the heartbeat steady here, from what I have tasted.

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2017 US Releases from Domaine de Bellene & Maison Roche de Bellene

Nicolas Potel has the most amazing side labels with information on surface area of vineyard planted, rootstock, plantation date, planting density, exposition, soil type, altitude, slope and even GPS location! They are ridiculously, delightfully nerdy. On the label you can also find the harvest date, fermentation vessel, final malolactic fermentation percentage, fining and filtration details and bottling date. It's almost as good as sitting with Nicolas himself.

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Stoller Family Estate Keeps Pushing the Envelope

There is something undeniably charming about a winery whose back label illustration of its property highlights a tire swing. But make no mistake, Stoller Family Estate is a highly sophisticated operation. The winery's tasting room has been voted by USA Today's "10Best" as one of the Best Tasting Rooms in the US three times, and the visitor experience is going bleeding edge this summer with virtual and augmented reality experiences in a new and immersive Stoller Experience Center.

More importantly - at least in my view, the wines of 17-year, Stoller winemaking veteran Melissa Burr continue to impress, especially the 2019 white and rosé. Both also win points for being very good values.

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What's New From Bellenos

This trio of wines confirms that Nicholas Potel is clearly on his way to crushing it with this wine line, just as I suspected last year. As it says on the rosé wine label, the Bellenos wines are "Burgundy from the Heart and Sol", sol being earth. The wines all taste definitively Burgundian, but the very gentle prices don't look Burgundian at all.

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Some of the Last Jay Somers Wines from J.Christopher

It was a pleasure to taste these wines made by J.Christopher founder, Jay Somers. While there are still a few vintages of Pinot Noir made by Jay to be released, this is the last of the white wines. (Jay left for a new venture in 2019.) These are worth looking into as there's not a single one that isn't charming!

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